Gratitude List, 2025

Hey folks! I'm trying to get this list out there before it goes too stale. It's pretty long - it's awesome that I have all these things I'm grateful for from just one year! (I think the last time I wrote an end of year list was for 2022. I'm not prolific.) Here goes ... feel free to skim:

I'm sober still, coming up on 36 years in February! My community there is my OG third space. We all know by now that Covid gave us a high tolerance for meeting up by video, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Through online meetings I've reconnected with folks in Austria, Sweden, the UK, and all over the US! I'm also 33 years off cigarettes as of yesterday. I'm very grateful not to smoke or drink, one day at a time.

Adam remains my ride or die.

My family is still a top source of gratitude. I feel very lucky. I'm glad to say my dad is thriving; he and his lovely girlfriend Judith have amazing reserves of energy and interest in everything. They kind of put me to shame with everything they run around doing and seeing. Sadly, my dear SIL lost her beloved dad this holiday season and I'm grieving for her and her side of the family. My brother and sister and I took our first-ever just-the-siblings trip in July. That was pretty cool.

Tap dance class! I always wanted to take tap and I finally got into it. I've been going for six months now. It was a huge bucket list item. The class is all ladies over a certain age (except for our teacher, who's quite spry) and it makes me very happy to hear us all clattering away in the studio.

WEIGHT LOSS ... DUDE. GLP-1 success for both of us! Almost 40 lbs for me and 100 lbs for him! I mean it really is a flat out miracle.

Pottery!

Three years into classes now, I'm getting sorta good at it. The community there is, I guess, my fourth space? (I feel lucky to claim so many different third spaces). My friends at the pottery studio I go to are spectacular. They are endlessly inventive, interested in a hundred different ways to grow and learn, and they inspire me to the moon. I'm loath to say this but I actually feel like I might be about to make some real art.

I have made some big amphora-ish pots (12" tall or a little bigger). For context, when I started taking pottery, my original aim was to make huge (two- or three- or four-foot) planters to use in my garden outside. This year, I took a series of "Big Pots" classes, and I made these three-part pots. They are constructed sort of like this:

So when I made something that was 12" tall and it was that much work, then I realized (a) trying to make those enormous planters would be redonkulous - and unnecessary because (b) I really, really, love making these amphora things. I love making these multi-part pots. They're not gargantuan, but are definitely respectable. Getting some parts put together, looking like they might fall apart, pulling the pot back from the brink of disaster, finally ending up with a nicely shaped item that I then get to use as a canvas for decoration? I think I might have a lot of runway in front of me there.

The other thing I feel like I got pretty decent at this year (I mean I know I still have plenty of improvement ahead of me, but I'm definitely decent at it now) is sets of matching pots. I don't need any more of anything but I really enjoy trying to make, like, let's say, 5 bowls that are all as close to exactly the same as I can do.

Trips!

• Asheville, NC w/JD & CDR

• New Orleans for Adam's bday

• Mexico for Evan's bday

Non-pottery Crafts!

• Needlepointed troll and goat

• Knitted 3 pairs of socks
• Knitted a "Good Pig"

• Spun 6 skeins of yarn, here's one:

• Cross-stitched "Just your opinion, man"

• Crocheted Gzemnid (a Dungeons & Dragons monster).

• I also got within a hair's breadth of finishing this sweater. I cast off the second sleeve at 12:05am on 1/1/26:

Music!

• The English Beat!! Went with Mel (pottery studio owner, teacher extraordinaire, and friend) and her partner.

• Lyle Lovett with Dad, Judith, & JD

• Weird Al with Adam, Tracy, and Ben

• JD's band, The Leftovers, in Connecticut

Other ...

• We saw those weird-ass Hilda af Klint works at MoMA and I was gobsmacked. I like these a lot more than her other stuff (that stuff is fine but this was beyond).
• I went to my 40th college reunion!

• I did Duolingo Spanish practice 363 days (only missed two the entire year). Say what you want about Duolingo, it's helpful. I'm certainly not fluent, but I am getting better.
• Adam wrote the first draft of a novel! "and I helped" - by being sounding board, alpha reader, and devil's advocate. It's really good, too. Even if I am biased. I'm so proud! I have been telling him for 20 years that he should be writing novels, so I am vindicated.
• Googycon V and VI happened. What is Googycon? Adam has a decades long-lived D&D community (his third space); during Covid they started playing online; they began playing a big communal adventure; they began coming together in person about every six months or so, to resolve each major chapter. Googycon is the "convention" where they do this. I don't play, but I book the meeting room in a local hotel, arrange for the after party catering, stuff like that. I'm an honorary member.

That's about it! It was in lots of ways a great year. Yes, I had to mute my news sources. The outside world is a dumpster fire. I've been donating a lot of money.

If you've read (or skimmed) this far, I thank you. You are absolutely one of the folks I'm grateful for, in one collection described above or another. Thank you for helping 2025 be so much better than it deserved to be... Let 2026 be a million times better! I love you!